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Munching on Arctic Greens

GRID-Arendal's Olivia Rempel wins Best Student Documentary at Close:Up Reykjavik Film Festival

By GRID-Arendal

July 16^th, 2021

Earlier this month The Close:Up Reykjavik Film Festival held its long awaited 2021 edition online. Arctic Greens, a short documentary co-produced by GRID-Arendal’s digital video expert, Olivia Rempel, was featured in the festival, and won Best Student Documentary.

Although this short film was created in 2017 by both Olivia and Craig Hickerson, even four years later the story still resonates. Food security, and what “local food” means in a changing Arctic are still questions on many people’s minds.

We hope you enjoy both the film and accompanying article.

It almost feels tropical for a moment, listening to the trickle of running water and basking in the pink light of UV lamps, in a forest of tiny lettuce heads, but then you exit the shipping container where this hydroponics operation is housed, only to be met with cold, vast tundra and snow covered peaks.

Arctic Greens is a hydroponics company operating on the edge of Greenland’s capital city, Nuuk, where owners Michael Heretis and Ivalu Wille are working to give Greenlanders more options when it comes to local food, and to help make the economy less dependent on food imported from other countries.

There’s just one problem: the lettuce sprouts typically grow for two weeks, but then they wilt and die. Something isn’t quite right with the amount of oxygen the roots are getting, and while balancing two full-time jobs and raising two kids, Heretis and Wille haven’t solved this problem yet.

Munching on Arctic Greens

Greenland has traditionally been a hunter-gatherer society, but as people enter the workforce and the wage-economy, hunters now sell their catch. A price that will turn a profit for the hunters, however, can’t always compete with cheap, imported meats.

This competition is on display every afternoon, as local meat and fish sellers line up outside the largest supermarket in town, proudly displaying the catch of the day, which could be anything from halibut or redfish, to seal or muskox. But it can’t always compete with the discount chicken, pork, and beef inside.

They often reduce their prices for elders, who are used to eating mostly Greenlandic food. Overall, however, demand seems to fluctuate -- booming at the beginning of the month, when people first receive their paychecks, but waning near the month’s end.

For many urban Greenlanders in the growing city of Nuuk, traditional food is reserved for “Kaffemik,” an open-house when a birthday, confirmation, or other event is celebrated with local delicacies, cake, and coffee.

Munching on Arctic Greens

Lettuce isn’t part of the traditional food culture, and it’s not an easy sell. You can’t blame the locals for passing up on bruised and browning heads of iceberg lettuce that just came off a long ship journey.

But agriculture isn’t completely new to Greenland. Although restricted to the summer months and the southern part of the island, some ambitious farmers grow potatoes, carrots, and even strawberries. When available, Greenlanders snap up this produce quickly, proud to be eating food that comes from their homeland.

The founders of Arctic Greens noticed this. Every time they’ve sent a crop of lettuce to the supermarket in Nuuk, people have quickly bought it all, often reaching out through Facebook and giving them feedback: “it’s too small,” or “it’s not crispy enough.”

Although the supermarkets pay more for each head of Arctic Greens lettuce, they sell them for almost the same as imported lettuce, though Heretis said they hope to reduce their price over time. This is because the supermarkets buy local lettuce by the head, but foreign lettuce by the crate, and when it arrives, it’s so banged up much of it is unsellable.

Munching on Arctic Greens

Heretis and Wille have to import their nutrient blend from the U.S.A. and their seeds from Denmark. But they’ve already begun experimenting with creating their own nutrients using seaweed from the bay.

“We only tried the seaweed thing with one [head of] lettuce so far,” said Heretis. “It worked. It became really big and nice. But we haven’t had the time and resources yet to try with many lettuces.”

It seems as if the entire Nuuk community, including politicians and other businesses, are rooting for Arctic Greens to succeed. Heretis jokes that all the politicians in Greenland have visited the farm. Even the utility companies are behind them.

The resource issues faced by Arctic Greens are different from those faced by most hydroponic farmers.

Last April they noticed a slow leak in one of their tanks, and began to empty it with a hose, which they led outside. But before long, the water coming out the other end froze, and they had to halt the process for the day, while the hose thawed.

Keeping the lights on and the facility at the optimal temperature is an energy intensive endeavor for any hydroponics farm, but especially in the higher latitudes. It’s no coincidence that the farm is located next to a garbage-incinerating power plant. The company operating the incinerator offered them a space to put their shipping containers and a lower energy rate until Arctic Greens can become financially viable, though Nuuk’s primary source of energy is hydropower.

Munching on Arctic Greens

When it comes to food, Nuuk is unique within Greenland. Paamiut, the eighth largest town in the region, where Arctic Greens originally began production, has a drastically different food culture.

Heretis, a carpenter, and Wille, an office manager, were living in Paamiut to be close to family when they were invited over to a friend’s house for dinner. When Heretis noticed the small hydroponics system his friend was operating as a hobby, Heretis saw the potential of the system on a larger scale.

At the time, they owned and operated a carpentry business, and the only taxi in Paamiut. Heretis joked that Wille was content with just the two businesses, but after some convincing, Heretis was able to get her onboard with the idea of starting a third.

Once they got their operation up and running, their lettuce was growing fine, 315 heads per week, but they weren’t selling.

“I don’t know if [people in Paamiut] didn’t buy it because they didn’t know what to do with it,” said Heretis. “I think they are more used to eating Greenlandic food, and not greens.”

Although he admits they were quick to give up on Paamiut, Heretis feels Nuuk is a better place to start their business, as it is the most diverse city in Greenland, and home to many Danes, who are more accustomed to eating greens.

The couple has settled in Nuuk, preferring the faster pace of life and the space to grow their fledging business. But rural issues are still on their mind. Wille recently returned from a tour of Greenland with a group of entrepreneurs to encourage their fellow Greenlanders to start businesses, and educate them on the resources available.

“People were looking us up in Facebook and asking us a lot of questions about everything business related, how to get started, how to get funding, and what else can be grown. We’ve been trying to answer everybody,” said Heretis. “We want to fix all the problems so we can help them get started without all the expenses.”

Learn more about Arctic Greens on Facebook here.

Visit the Close:Up Reikjavik Film Festival website for more information.

Footnotes

Olivia Rempel is a Canadian journalist and documentary filmmaker. She is GRID-Arendal's Digital Video Expert.

FootNotes

Olivia Rempel is a Canadian journalist and documentary filmmaker. She is GRID-Arendal's Digital Video Expert.

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